Tuesday, February 24, 2015

KG Klink, Poland, Epilogue

All,

Some stats for you:
-16 individual actions in two major and one minor battles.
-Including Lt Col Klink, who was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class for his overall leadership of KG Klink during the campaign in Poland, KG Klink personnel were awarded 19 Iron Crosses (including two Iron Cross 1st Class).
-Three men were awarded the Tank Killer Badge (Sgt Mader of 4th Grenadier Platoon, Lt Wehner, Acting Reconnaissance Company Commander, and Sgt Albrecht, Assault Engineer Platoon).
-The vast majority of men that took part in the bulk of the campaign were awarded either the Panzer Assault Badge or Infantry Assault Badge (you won't see it in the KG Klink Poland OOB, it is reflected in the KG Klink France OOB, which I've already created).
-The games themselves lasted between 40 and 90 minutes, with the average being about 60 minutes.
-It took me too long for battle prep, about an hour (for each fight) to set up the table, select the forces, and match them up with my campaign OOB.
-It took me an average of 90 minutes to type up each batrep, not including another 15 minutes to post it online and 20 minutes to upload photos.
-All told, about 50 hours of work went into the games, more if you include me thinking of the campaign, writing up the campaign plan, and other assorted administrivia.

Further notes on casualties:
The KG's officers were hit extremely hard:
-The KG XO, Major Schultz, was wounded and missed a substantial portion of the campaign.
-Every officer in the entire Panzer Company was a casualty, not one finished the campaign. Panzer Sergeants finished the campaign as the Acting Company Commander and Acting Platoon Commanders.
-The Schutzen Company lost two of four Platoon Commanders.
-The Reconnaissance Company lost one of three Platoon Commanders and its Company Commander.
-The Panzer Company and the Reconnaissance Company ended the campaign on their third company commander.
-Ultimately, two of three Company Commanders were lost, as were their replacements, and seven of eleven Platoon Commanders were lost. The KG suffered from its leaders leading from the front.
-Lt Wehner, Acting Reconnaissance Company Commander was wounded twice during the campaign.
-To illustrate that point, the KG XO, two Company Commanders, and three Platoon Commanders were awarded Iron Crosses, including two Grenadier Platoon Commanders being awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class.

7 comments:

A very interesting set of accounts to sum up a very enjoyable set of battle reports and campaign. I still think you've got the makings of a novel there- something similar to a Tom Clancy but in the vein of Leo Kessler or Sven Hassel. Seems quite a realistic outcome and the high attrition of junior leaders seems pretty true to reality.

Now it's time for KG Klink to take in a new draft of recruits, promote the surviving leaders, get the armour upgraded and get them on the train for the west. They've got 8 months of campaign time to get ready for Sedan and the drive for Calais. Are you going to put them against the BEF as well as the French?

Hiya Andy, good to see ya. Sorry, no novel, I don't have time ;) If you'd kindly spot me a million, I'll gladly free up some time by quitting my job though ;)

I am very happy with how the campaign turned out, and, from my understanding, it was certainly historically plausible, which is the best I could have hoped for (along with all the fun it brought me, of course).

I've already done up the order of battle for France; no reorganization yet, it will look pretty much like it did in Poland: Panzer Company with four 5-tank platoons, Rifle Company with four rifle platoons and Weapons Platoon, and a Recon Company with Armored Car Plt and two motorcycle platoons, though a PzJgr platoon and a Stug platoon are being added they were actually on the Poland OOB, but I didn't use them as they weren't historically available.

A pretty decent re-org will happen after France, for North Africa though. In any case, there aren't as many replacements for France as you would expect as a lot of the wounded are coming back. I did leave about five guys out of battle; they're officer cadets and will miss the campaign while they go through officer training, then re-join the KG for North Africa.

The KG will be facing off against both the French and the BEF, but the next escapade is a little ways off. I was looking through my forces today and saw that a lot more of my BEF stuff isn't finished than I thought, and since that was the case I decided to order some more stuff from Pendraken...

Yeah, it was pretty rough, particularly on the Panzer Company. As I mentioned above, I'm keeping about five Officer Cadets out of the fight in France (I think three of them were already listed in Poland as Officer Cadets, and I added two more Sergeants that won the Iron Cross). They're going to miss that campaign while going through officer training. On the one hand, it's realistic, and on the other, it will ensure the KG always has some officers on hand for the next campaign ;)

Regarding officer casualties, it was sort of just luck of the draw. What I mean is, when a unit is knocked out, after the game I roll to see if the leader (officer or NCO) was hit as well (1-4 hit, 5-6 not hit), and if hit I roll to see what happened (1-2 KIA, 3-5 WIA out for campaign, 6 WIA but back next fight). So plenty of units led by NCOs were knocked out during the game, but the NCOs did better than the officers when rolling to see if they were hit. I don't think it was too ahistorical.

2 hour batreps: this doesn't include downloading pics and uploading write-ups to forums. And I type fast, but that's why I have so many misspellings...

I'm really aggravated with the set up and takedown times. Now, I know I don't have the most beautiful tables you guys have seen, but it take quite a bit of time to throw down all that rug and lichen, then clean it up again ;)

I've honestly begun considering playing on tables that are a bit more sparse, a bit more simple. I can't wait to get to North Africa!

I do not type fast but not that slow either - I work in IT and type emails and documents all day but never learned touch typing but getting closer to it every day. By the time I retire, I think I will be able to type quite fast!

I hear you on the set up and take down time. It almost makes me want to play with rules that last hours and hours. Almost. One reason to like playing ancients - the setup time is a lot less as there is rarely much terrain :-)